Welcome to Cumbria Tourism's business website

Cumbria Tourism is the official Tourist Board for the Lake District, Cumbria. Our shared Tourism Strategy for Cumbria has a clear vision – to become Europe’s Number One rural tourism destination. We won’t achieve such ambition without the input of the commercial sector and we recognise the need to improve considerably on many fronts.

We aspire to be excellent in all aspects of our Tourist Board and Destination Management remit. Achieving, maintaining and improving on our ‘excellence ambition’, which all staff at CT are totally committed to and determined to progress. CT continues to go from strength to strength and our membership represents 2,500 tourism dependent businesses.

Cumbria Tourism also has a suite of marketing opportunities available to members of CT and is proud to have generated a number of successful marketing campaigns such as the recent #theplacetobe campaign.

Our Executive Board are valued representatives from the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, Cumbria County Council, the Lake District National Park as well as private sector representatives.

We urge you to join Cumbria Tourism and help us become a truly world class visitor destination.

What does Tourism mean to Cumbria?

Cumbria is far more dependent on tourism than most other parts of the UK.

In 2016 Cumbria and the Lake District received just over 45 million visitors, made up of 38.8 million day trippers and 6.3 million overnight visitors.

Between them, day and staying visitors combined to produce 59.4m tourist days.
These visitors brought in £2.72 billion to the region’s economy and provided employment for 36,240 full time equivalent (FTE) posts.

As many tourism jobs are actually part time, or seasonal, the total number of people in tourism jobs is estimated at 62,316, around 20% of the county’s total employment.

Between 2015 and 2016, there was an increase of 4% in tourist days, 5.2% in tourist numbers, and 4.1% in tourism revenue. This builds on increases in both 2013 and 2014.

The Lake District World Heritage Site

We are delighted to announce that The Lake District is now a World Heritage Site, joining just over 1,000 global World Heritage locations as an internationally acclaimed destination.
Three key themes underpinned the bid for inscription. Examples of identity, inspiration and conservation were needed to demonstrate a cultural landscape of international significance.
Cumbria Tourism will use WHS to promote the whole of Cumbria and encourage visitors to explore beyond the traditional ‘honeypot’ locations and enjoy a range of lesser-known, authentic experiences.

Cumbria Tourism Patrons

Cumbria Tourism patrons are vital to supporting the work we do and we work closely with them, providing opportunities to market their services to our members. For more information on becoming a patron please contact Sarah Glover at sglover@cumbriatourism.org